The old nun lowered her eyelids and joined her hands before her, sighing. “It is in your life. No need to resign to your fate.”
Qianlie seemed to be stricken by thunder, looking absent-minded. After a long time of silence, she prostrated. “Grandma, please help me.”
“Amitabha!”
The old nun drooped her eyelids and said peacefully, “His destiny is wronged by women. One woman is one disaster. No one can help him but himself. Your entire life is full of suffering. Why not follow me to practice Buddhism?”
“But he is also your grandson, don’t you want to save him from trouble?” Ding Qianlie begged sadly.
The old nun finally raised her head, looked at her coldly, and sighed. “I am away from the mundane world. My Buddhist name is Jingxin. I have no relatives or friends, and how can I have a grandson?”
“Grandma, I know my grandpa once ill-treated you, but he is your grandson after all. My mother only has one son, and I only have one brother. I hope grandma can save him.”
Ding Qianlie prostrated and was not willing to stand up, crying and begging.
The old nun Jingxin was glassy without words, seemingly recalling her past. After a long time, she took a long sigh. “Well, it seems I haven’t broken my bonds with the mundane world. But this can only happen once, and there won’t be another time!”
“Thank you, grandma!” Ding Qianlie kowtowed heavily and felt quite happy.
“There has never been anything, where does the dust come from? Amitabha!” She closed her eyes to meditate and didn’t speak anything anymore.
Ding Qianlie was happy because she knew if the grandma before her was willing to help, Ding Ning would not have to die.
On the plain bed in a Buddhist room, Ding Qianlie was sitting by the bed and holding Ding Ning’s hand tight. This was the first time that she had seen the long-predestined husband in her life so near, she didn’t have any strange or resistant emotions.
Looking at him wearing a painful face even in a coma, she felt sorry and cried soon.
Knife Scar and his men were quietly standing outside the room. Miss Ding said it was not their fault, but they were still guilty of themselves.
“Grandma, how is he?”
As soon as the old nun Jingxin had felt Ding Ning’s pulse, Ding Qianlie couldn’t help asking.
“Strange, I have never met such a pulse. The meridians are broken, the True Qi is in a mess… no, the spiritual aura is in a mess.”
Jingxin seemed to have felt something, showing an incredible look in her eyes.
“The Spiritual aura? Not the True Qi?”
Ding Qianlie had a strange look, and she also seemed to be familiar with the True Qi.
“It is the spiritual aura. That’s why I feel it is strange.”
Jingxin found Ding Qianlie was still confused, and so she explained in detail, “The spiritual aura is also called Inborn True Qi, which comes from the mother. As the warrior’s practice continues and the unclean aura of the human world enters him, the Inborn True Qi will gradually grow, but it will also become extremely complicated at the same time. In ancient times, the spiritual aura was dense between heaven and earth, and the practitioner could constantly absorb the obviously pure spiritual aura from the outside and turn it into the spiritual aura inside himself. With the industrial development of modern society, pollution becomes more and more serious and the spiritual aura between heaven and earth becomes thinner and thinner. Therefore, those Ancient Warriors now live like hermits to practice in the places where the spiritual aura is rich or in the mountains and lakes. The child has been living in the mundane world, but how could he have had the pure spiritual aura? It’s unbelievable.”
“Is this good or bad for him?”
Ding Qianlie asked nervously. She didn’t care about the so-called spiritual aura, and she only cared about Ding Ning’s safety.
“The essence of practice is to constantly absorb the flowing spiritual aura between heaven and earth and constantly clean the practitioner’s body to get rid of its impurities. The aim of doing so is to elongate the person’s lifespan and keep him healthy, but the precondition is the purity of the spiritual aura. The purer the spiritual aura, the better the effect of exercising the body.”
When she found Ding Qianlie was still not very clear about it, the old nun Jingxin said as the light of wisdom shone in her clean eyes, “Let’s make an analogy. It is like washing fruit. The cleaner the water is, the more easily the fruit will become clean. But if the water is not clean, the fruit will not become clean no matter how you wash it. The fruit here represents the human body, the clean water represents the spiritual aura, and the unclean water is the True Qi of the human world. Therefore, practice means constantly cleaning the dirty water and changing it to clean water. In a word, it is a process of making the fruit become clean.”
Ding Qianlie understood it but then asked with confusion, “Since his body is full of the spiritual aura, isn’t that a good thing?”
“As for practice itself, this is something extremely good. The spiritual aura inside him means that his practicing process is much quicker than that of common practitioners, for he doesn’t need to turn the True Qi to the spiritual aura. But considering his injuries, the overly pure spiritual aura has made his injuries hard to heal.”
The old nun Jingxin gave a wry smile. “I have practiced peacefully for so many years, but the spiritual aura I’ve gotten is not as pure as his although it is much thicker than his. That’s why it is very hard for me to treat him by using my spiritual aura to guide his. Instead, my spiritual aura will be expelled by his. That is definitely not a good thing.”
“What will become of him?” Ding Qianlie didn’t expect such a result and asked anxiously.
The old nun Jingxin forced a smile and shook her head. “The spiritual aura inside him is already out of control, and he will die of all his meridians becoming broken. I can’t help him.”
“Ah, grandma, I beg you, you must have ways to save him, right? Please think of some ways right now. He cannot die.”
Ding Qianlie’s eye sockets turned red immediately and begged the old nun Jingxin desperately by holding her hand.
The old nun Jingxin closed her eyes and chanted the Buddhist mantra. After a long time, she stared at Ding Qianlie carefully and said seriously,
“Qianlie, you have very good qualities. I have been wishing to make you my disciple and inherit my faith and position, but your bond with the mundane world is not over yet. You still have so many earthly things to do and are not willing to be my disciple for whatever reason. Now I ask you, what are you willing to do in terms of saving his life?”
“If he can be saved, I am willing to give up my life,” Ding Qianlie said decisively with her red eyes.
The old nun Jingxin asked expressionlessly, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure!” Ding Qianlie said firmly.
“Amitabha. If so, I still have the last way.”
The old nun Jingxin chanted the Buddhist mantra, which gave Ding Qianlie hope at once, and she pressed, “What way?”
“You are an inborn Buddha body that cannot easily appear even in 10,000 years. If you convert to Buddhism, you are bound to have the supreme Buddhist achievement and become the living Buddha of the time. But you have stubborn beliefs. To pay a debt of gratitude, you are willing to live in the mundane world. Now, you are even willing to fall into Avici Hell only for the sake of saving him. The Buddha practiced the way of becoming the Enlightened and once cut his own flesh to feed an eagle, but you… alas.”
The old nun Jingxin eyed Ding Ning with a complicated look, sighed, and gave a wry smile.
“Saving him is equal to feeding a demon with your own flesh. Well, well, this is an underserved predestined relationship, but it is also your fate and even my disaster. I have already left the earthly world and shall have a peaceful mind, but unfortunately, my Buddhist heart is not purely clean, and I cannot give up the kinships of the human world.”
Ding Qianlie blinked, was confused, and didn’t know what she was talking about. “Feeding a demon with my own flesh? He is my younger brother. How come he is a demon?”
The old nun Jingxin didn’t explain anything, but she took a careful look at the stone man on Ding Ning’s neck. Removing demons to guard the right path was the responsibility of the Buddhists, but when the demon was her grandson, she couldn’t give up the will to save him eventually because of their blood ties.
She sighed secretly in her heart and had to give up the skill of a lifetime practice. From now on, whether he was a demon or a Buddha, she would devote all her energy to worshipping the Buddha and have no worries anymore.
Immediately, she became serious and said, “Qianlie, there are demons inside him. He could have controlled them with his pure spiritual aura, but now, after he was counterattacked, his demon character is to break out soon. If that happens, he will blast and die because he could not calm down the demon character. Now, I can only pass wisdom to you and make you achieve the Great Happiness Zen, and then you can do “double practice” with him and reasonably use his messy spiritual strength to heal his injuries and increase his Buddhist character so as to contain his demon character. From today on, your Buddhist character will completely disappear, your practicing path will be over, and you will become the practicing furnace. Are you sure you still want to save him?”
Ding Qianlie blushed. She had no idea about the demon character or the Buddhist character, but she only knew the meaning of “double practice” and felt shy.
She had known he was her future husband for a long time, but, in her heart, she still hoped that he could pursue her, and then they would have a romantic process and finally become husband and wife.
But she never thought the moment had come so soon that she was unprepared, with her heart beating fast, and she felt she was not completely ready yet.
But now Ding Ning was in grave danger and could blast and die at any moment. She had to throw away her reserved attitude and shyness and nodded seriously as if she was about to die for something great. “I am sure!”
“If so, you may begin. Sit in a lotus position with your back toward me!”
The old nun’s cold face turned to a merciful one at the moment, full of compassion for the world.
She didn’t know whether she was right or wrong, but she couldn’t cut her blood ties with the human world. Even though a demon could grow up because of her help, she had to do it now.
A pair of old, wrinkled hands closely touched the back of Ding Qianlie, and the practicing formula of the Great Happiness Zen appeared in Qianlie’s mind. She learned it by heart and would never forget it.
“Once I was worried that falling in love would affect my Buddhist practice, and I wanted to leave the earthly world to concentrate on practice but I could not bear to leave my beloved one. Is there a good way in the world that can help me live up to the Buddha’s great kindness and the love of my beloved one… the great truth is always associated with yin and yang, and a small mistake may lead to a great sigh; anyone should not have meaningless arguments, and men and women don’t have to fight for gains and losses; the best way to practice is to make a man and woman have sex, and it is not good to practice alone; if there are no chicken eggs, and how can we get fledglings…”
Ding Qianlie murmured the formula, but she thought about the sexual “double practice” scene that could make her blush time after time. Then, she was lost in her imagined romantic situation, her body became hot…
As Jingxin’s spiritual strength turned to streams of air currents to circulate in her meridians and form different circulations, every part of her skin turned red, her blood vessels bulged, and she had a kind of suffocation that she would blast and die at any time because she had no way out for these currents.
The old nun Jingxin had let go of her hands and held her palms in the air, and Ding Ning was already in suspension in mid-air.
“Tock, tock…”
The old nun Jingxin patted different parts of Ding Ning respectively, Ding Ning’s breath increased constantly and insanely…
The dispirited Jingxin looked at Ding Qianlie, heaved a deep sigh, trembled and stood up, closed the door, and left. Before she left, with a pair of blurred eyes, Ding Qianlie had lost control of herself, rushed to Ding Ning, and crazily tore off his clothes.
Ding Ning had a long dream. He seemed to be in a limitless sea of fire, but he had lost all his strength, had no energy to fight back, and felt helpless and panic.
The whole sky of rain of fire could burn him into ashes at any time, his lungs pained like burning, and that horrible suffocation feeling had made him become afraid of death for the first time in his life.
So real and so clear was that fear, which made him generate a strong unwillingness and a desire for living. Then, his extremely great anger quickly broke out, and a gigantic translucent shadow appeared behind him.
But the shadow was not that arhat who fought demons anymore, but a freak who was black, had a pair of horns, a face of an ox, and a pair of wings, and gave off a terrifying, overbearing air.
The sea of fire seemed to be in awe of the shadow and constantly avoided it, but the shadow like a king who ruled the world took Ding Ning with him and proudly rushed into the fire.
“Boom!”
Ding Ning and the shadow merged into each other, a black fire came from it, and the strong strength made him want to utter a long and loud cry, but he found that he couldn’t make any sound.
He could not even control his hands and feet as if he was a puppet, his every move was manipulated by the shadow, and he was so afraid because of it.
The most terrifying thing was that the shadow’s strength was too strong. His meridians couldn’t bear the perfusion of strength from the shadow and bulged and swelled constantly so that his blood vessel pressure became extremely high, and he would die of a meridian blast at any time.
